Kekaha Kai State Beach is a remote beach in the Kekaha Kai State Park .

It's recommended to have a 4-wheel drive vehicle to get in as the road is not completely paved and pretty rough in certain sections.

They have new public bathrooms and a big parking lot.

We got there early and had the beach all to ourselves.

This beautiful beach is located up on the northwest side of the Big Island of Hawaii.

We turned off from the highway into Kekaha Kai State Park.

We followed the road past the 1st parking lot to the 2nd parking lot. 

If you don't have a 4-wheel drive vehicle, you could park at the 1st parking lot and walk the rest of the way to the beach.

We were driving a Jeep and were able to drive to the 2nd parking lot at the beach.

This is the view from the highway. You can see that the first part of the road is paved.

You'll see the sign for Kekaha Kai State Park and the park hours are from 8am to 6:30pm. They lock the gate at 7pm.

Once you get into the park, the road alternates between paved to unpaved back to paved back to unpaved. It's recommended to have a 4-wheel drive vehicle. We drove a Jeep and did just fine. We did see some smaller cars make it and some parked halfway and walked the rest of the way.

We finally made it to the 1st parking lot, which is paved. There is a sign that shows an arrow going straight to the picnic area at the beach. This is the direction you are going to go to get to Kekaha Kai State Beach. This first parking lot is for if you want to hike to Mahai'ula Beach or Makalawena Beach.

You drive straight through this 1st parking lot and the pavement will end and you take the unpaved road the rest of the way.

On the left hand side of the road, you'll see the new public bathrooms they recently built.

We drove to the parking lot and found that we were the only ones at the beach. We got out and started exploring this beautiful beach.

This is what the picnic area looks like:

As we walked closer to the beach we saw that there was a rocky area and only a few spots that opened up to swim out.

This beach is really close to the airport, so we saw lots of planes fly over.

As we walked down the beach, this was the biggest area to get in the water.

We loved how open and wide this beach gets. There's plenty of room.

We had a great time here and loved that we had the entire beach to ourselves.

(Click on the map above to go to a Google Maps larger view.)

Kekaha Kai State Beach has free parking. 

Total Cost: $0

These are the checklist items I recommend:

• Drive a 4-wheel drive vehicle if you can for the unpaved section of the road.
• Bring your own snorkel gear.
• Bring some drinks and snacks.
• Bring reef safe sunscreen.